Archive for the 'War on Terror' Category

Other interesting questions: Is the NRA preparing for 21st Century Civil War in the United States? If not, why do so many of their members need military style automatic multi-killing rifles that can unload “30 bullets in 45 seconds”?

According to public relations advertisements from stores and suppliers, the guns that mowed down those twenty kindergartners and first graders were manufactured for use by Army patrolmen protecting overseas military bases:

Aren’t most of the men and women purchasing these guns civilians? Then why do they need weapons designed for soldiers fighting in wars? Ads for the ‘M4-As Type Patrolman’s Carbine – For soldiers on patrol’ claim: “The Bushmaster M4A2 Type Patrolman’s Carbine .223 Remington Semiautomatic Rifle features a chrome-lined military profile barrel, an aircraft-quality aluminum receiver and an outer coating of military-specification manganese phosphate.”

Only statements by Smith and Wesson’s very popular ‘Bushmaster AR-15’––the semi-automatic rifle loaded with 100-bullet clips used to murder those babies in Sandy Hook––include wording for: “law enforcement, military and home-defense applications to hunting and competition shooting.” OK, so what kind of ‘homes’ or ‘hunting’ objects need this kind of ‘defense’?

In his article ‘The 5 Deadliest Guns You Can Buy Online—Legally,’ Josh Marks asks: “Will we demand our political leaders take action [about] America’s lax gun control laws? Or will we let the NRA and their followers continue to dominate the discussion by dismissing guns as the problem or even arguing that every private citizen should own a gun? Should the children have been packing? Shopping malls. Houses of worship. Schools. Cinemas. A mass shooting every other week. Will we become numb to what should be shocking?”

Good questions! Moreover, we ask: What is the purpose for so many guns? Again, is it for some sort of new Civil War in our country? Is it to stir up such fear that Americans will surrender to those who weld this gun power? Or is it to break the political back of what is said to be the greatest democracy in the world?

Or do the gun toters intend to turn us into an exclusively violent society, one where no neighborhood or city will be safe. Such a society invites God’s total destruction. Bible prophecies say of Noah’s time: “. . . the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth (Genesis 6: 13).” We can only forestall His Holy wrath by shackling these killer guns now!

The governor of New York spoke of Hurricane Sandy as the second ‘storm of a lifetime’ in two years. Friday’s death knell against precious children was the third mass murder in our country this year? Their horror screams of a modern America that has become today’s untamed 19th century wild, wild west.

The James Holmes shot out at a Denver movie theater in July, and the Sikh temple Murders in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in August, also don’t include the scores of ‘everyday’ shootings across the country.

As ‘Mother Jones’ points out in ‘A Guide to Mass Shootings in America,’ the overwhelming majority of the 62 mass killings of four of more victims in the last twenty years in some 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii were carried out by men who owned their guns legally. How is this possible in a civilized society?

Many of these deaths could have been avoided if the federal government had ‘common sense’ regulations about gun control. Nicholas D. Kristof writes in ‘Do We Have the Courage to Stop This?’: “The fundamental reason kids are dying in massacres like this one is not that we have lunatics or criminals — all countries have them — but that we suffer from a political failure to regulate guns. Children ages 5 to 14 in America are 13 times as likely to be murdered with guns as children in other industrialized countries.”

Kristof cites laws protecting children, such as: building codes, school bus standards, tests for bus drivers, food safety in cafeterias, toy inspections, etc. But our country has scant regulations of guns. He argues: “More Americans die in gun homicides and suicides in six months than have died in the last 25 years in every terrorist attack and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.”

Those who retort “gun control attacks our freedoms” must know this is not about freedom, it is about gun industry money. AP reporters Eileen Sullivan and Jack Gillum report: “As of October 2012, there were 50,812 retail gun dealers––that’s 3,303 more than in 2009. . . Sturm Ruger & Co. Inc., one of the nation’s largest gun manufacturers, . . . say demand is still outpacing production.”

In ‘America’s Gun Industry is Booming,’ for GlobalPost.com Jennifer Wilmore agrees: “A recent Gallup survey indicates 47 percent of American adults keep guns.” She says that American manufacturers produce most of those guns, and that those same gun-makers are “the world’s leading weapons exporter[s].”

America must decide if she wants to go back to those wild west days, or if she wants to remain the modern beacon of peace for the world. As used Christian Bibles promises: “Blessed is the nation whose God is The LORD; and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance (Psalm 33: 12).”

Global Warming, Hurricane Sandy, and this week’s deaths of 20 precious children indicates our nation is losing favor with God. If we continue selling death machines for profit, enabling mad-men to sacrifice children in such unrelenting slaughter, we should expect more signs of judgment!

Mayors, local politicians and law enforcement officers are well aware that this nation’s tide toward escalating gun violence must be abated. Failure to do so could lead to a type of anarchy that law enforcement cannot contain. Yet, lobbyists for the gun industry are now pushing Congress to pass legislation that would authorize citizens in every state to carry concealed loaded weapons.

Because they know that too much lawlessness already tears our cities apart, more than 600 Mayors across the country oppose this legislation. And they ask the American people to stand with them in opposing such potentially disastrous laws. Those who want less violence in this nation can contact the mayors’ group at www.OurLivesOurLaws.org for information.

Throughout all of our struggles, this country still survives as the greatest nation on earth. Thanks to examples set by out-spoken people like my great-great grandmother, Ida B. Wells who published newspapers exposing the truth about the violence of lawlessness and mob lynchings in her times.

When so awakened, the majority of the American people always seem to rally around that which is right and good. But we are still a very violent nation. An international poll taken in 1997 found that the United States suffered more people to die from gun violence than any other nation on earth.

Criminologists report that “Gun-related homicide rates in the United States are twenty to thirty-five times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it.” They claim that inconsistently higher rates only occur in developing nations or in those suffering political instability.

Wikipedia reports: “Gun-related homicide rates in the United States are twenty to thirty-five times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it . . . . [It] is most common in poor urban areas and in conjunction with gang violence, often involving juveniles or young adults.”

The soon-coming reign of the anti-Christ will be a time of lawlessness everywhere. However, genuine Christians, who have accepted Christ as Savior and patterned their lives after His Word, will not be on earth when this time of total lawlessness begins. As promised in Bible prophecies, they will have been raptured––caught up into the air to be with Christ as detailed in 1 Thessalonians 4: 16 – 17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” While here, however, we are commanded to resist evil in every way possible––including working with local and national leaders to get guns off our streets!

One must respond to those complaining about Americans celebrating the military’s success in killing Osama Bin Laden. Small children may not comprehend why grown people were out in the streets rejoicing over the death of one man. But for grown people to write blogs, such as one on the Huffington Post, calling his death a “Revenge” killing––it is time to say enough! When television newscasters allow men women to call the nation’s joyous reaction to his death “shameful”––it is more than past time to say enough!

For the last nine plus years, most adult Americans realize that we were attacked on our own shores by three gruesome cowardly acts, devised by Bin Laden, who believed he could reduce our nation to shame, defeat and poverty by: destroying our economy––represented by the twin towers in New York; our political system––represented by the plane intended to hit the White House; and our military might––represented by the simultaneous attack on the Pentagon.

Listen! in those acts, Bin Laden declared war on the United States of America. And for nearly 10 years, this nation’s Armed Forces and intelligence networks have been fighting back against the attackers––the chief one of which was Osama Bin Laden. In a war, when you kill an enemy, it is not “Revenge!” It is not seen as “Retaliation!” It is called attacking and defeating an enemy determined to kill more Americans than the 3,000 he has already murdered.

Certainly those brave men and women who diverted the plane intended for the White House to a field in Pennsylvania understood that it was war. And with only a few seconds to comprehend that our nation was in peril, they gave their very lives to stop that third plane from reaching its target. Would those weeping willows crawling over media now claim that these heroes were retaliating?

What kind of psychology is this? It must be some new study called “How to Treat Adult Children.” As for those underage children also wondering about the celebration of his death, parents should explain that there really are evil people in the world, some of whom are so full of satanic purpose that they cannot be treated with counseling or kindness or anything else. Herman Melville wrote a novel called Billy Budd. The main character was a young man who was so innocent he failed to comprehend that his captain was insanely evil. Eventually the captain killed the innocent one. Melville’s point: blind innocence is dangerous ignorance.

It is stupid to try to coddle a snake. In wholesale Christian Bibles, The Lord Jesus commands us to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10: 16). He also says: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10: 19). America’s soldiers understand that when a snake attacks the nation they must kill it. As for these adult children: like Billy Budd, their childish lack of comprehension is indeed hopeless!

A few days ago, this site posted a blog about the importance of everyone just doing their job. Today, we wish to say a big “Thank You” to: The President of the United States, his cabinet which maintained such tight secrecy about this assault, the intelligence community who obeyed the president’s order to make the capture of Osama Bin Laden top priority, the U.S. military, and especially to some 40 Navy Seals who did their job of attacking the Bin Laden mansion in Pakistan and taking out the master-mind terrorist of the infamous 911 attack against our nation.

The world may never know the names of all the Americans who have worked tirelessly over the almost 10 years to collectively do the job of bringing this mass murderer to justice. These men and women have not worked for money––they could have gone to Wall Street or other money-making ventures to do that. They have not done it for fame or glory. True heroism seldom does.

On the wall of the Central Intelligence Agency are stars, many without names, for the many agents who gave their lives in service to our country. To give their names would endanger the operations of which they were a part. Nevertheless they are recognized because they did their jobs. Such has always been the legacy of the United States: brave men and women working together to bring their nation victory. We may not know all the names of these faithful heroes among those who labor constantly for their country. But God does.

Also, we also wish to thank the many Americans who flooded the streets of New York, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Ohio and other locations to celebrate this great victory––one of the greatest victories of our times. They shouted and hugged in unity, giving no thought to political party or race or age, etc. They, as all of us, were simply proud to be Americans. As the President said in his announcement last night, these celebrants proved that––no matter what a few admits––we are one nation, one people, standing together against all enemies.

Finally, all of us wish to thank those Christians who have prayed so earnestly over these years that God would give us a victory against this man to whom his terrorist pledged allegiance as if he were a god. Just as we don’t know the names of many of the heroes mentioned above, the world does not know these prayer warriors. But God knows. The war against al Queda has often been an invisible one. The names of most of the villains or heroes are not known to men. But God knows. For nothing is invisible to Him. As the Apostle Paul sets the example in Christian prayer books for all Americans, we join him in saying: “Thanks be to God Who giveth us the victory, through Our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Corinthians 15: 57). Now let us all get back to work with the proud understanding that reward does come, and will come in eternity, when we all just do our jobs!

Of course it must be admitted that part of the reason that the New York Times gives such attention to Pakistan’s flooding ruinations is because these horrors could bring the taliban to power in that weakened nation. And the United States is already at war with the taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. World watchers are well aware that the only institution apparently able to keep Pakistan somewhat together is its military. And even the military, and most definitely the civilian government, is riddled with corruption and/or taliban sympathizers.

Of course, Pakistan intelligence is aware that Al-Qaeda’s taliban, not only operates in Afghanistan, but also in neighboring India. Called Jemaah Islamiyah, the splintered groups are said to be responsible for those deadly attacks on Mumbai India last November. And various news agencies report that the same types of splintered, yet quasi-unified, groups operate throughout Asia.

These world watchers also keep an eye on parts of Africa where, according to the BBC, it is suspected that the taliban recently killed 150 people in northern Nigeria after setting fire to a police station and a church. In chaotic Somalia, which has not had a lawful government in 20 years, the taliban has no difficulty in recruiting, indoctrinating and turning teen-age boys into self-sacrificing killers. Loosely-linked violent taliban––i.e. Al-Qaeda––groups also operate in Kenya, in regions of North Africa and in South Africa.

The Anti-Defamation League reports that Al-Qaeda, and its various subsidiaries, is especially strong in the Philippines, where car bombs and other destructions are almost daily occurrences. And CNN internet, as well as other international media, reports that those types of Al-Qaeda subgroups now operate in South America, and are working their way northward. Surely, various secret agencies within the U.S. government are aware of these implications on border and immigration infringements.

These actualities indicate coming indigenous-type world-wars. The Lord Jesus said that one sign of His imminent return to earth is wars and rumors of wars (Matthew 24: 6)––that is various types of wars, in various places, some only slightly heard of. These encounters involve spiritual, as well as geographical, warfare. Ardent Christians and authentic churches must engage in intense and continuous intercessory prayer for the protection of this nation believers claim to love. (The Lord would surely be pleased if we played for other nations as well.) Christian prayer books can provide inspiration for this type of devoted prayer. And out-of- print used Christian books can give examples of those now gone to heaven who prayed such havoc away from their nations’ shores. Like the U.S. news media––which follows its tradition of doing limited reporting on these types of small ongoing wars––it is also time for God’s people to pull our heads out of the sand and step up to the battle lines.